Almost a Dozen

As I mentioned in my last post, the recent arrivals of Mikhaila’s project car and Victoria’s modern car has our yard and front curb (and neighbor’s curb) bursting at the seams. When our 1920s vintage neighborhood was laid out, I don’t think the city planners had any idea that, nearly a century later, some crazy family would possess and attempt to park eleven vehicles and a trailer. Where do we have all these vehicles? The garage holds TwoTone; the driveway has Luna, Wilma, the Suburban, and the PT Cruiser; the backyard is home to the LeMans and the trailer; while our front curb catches Lucy, Heidi, and Glinda. Finally, two of our understanding neighbors (only one car each and rarely, if ever, have visitors) see Ringo and Victoria’s Mazda5 when they look out their front windows. INSANITY!!!!

A line must be drawn in the pavement. After asking me which ones are going away, the lovely Loriann posed two more questions. “Do you want to continue to call a Corvair your daily-driver?” and “What one Corvair would you have for the foreseeable future?” Both excellent questions; and ones which I could, surprisingly, quickly answer. First, no, I don’t want to continue to rely upon a Corvair for my daily commute through the forthcoming salt and snow. So the Suburban will be going away, replaced by a nice, used medium-sized pickup. Second, with high hopes of participating in at least three track events next year, I want a LM coupe. There are many reasons LM Corvairs outnumber the EMs nine-to-one at track events – the two biggest ones being Corvette-style suspension and Chevelle brakes. I’ve wrung all I can out of Lucy short of fitting her with a 140 HP engine – that, I’m afraid, would make me afraid. And an EM wagon is NOT a track car, no matter how many creative band-aids I could put on during Wilma's roadification.

So that means both Lucy and Wilma will be going up for sale starting this weekend. I’d like to still put some flooring into Lucy and put her interior back together, and I just placed an order with the Corvair Ranch for a GUP speedometer cable to replace the one I stole to put in Ringo. With that done, I’m thinking I’ll put a $2500 price on her since she’s really ready to go racing as-is. Wilma’s another thing. She doesn’t run and she needs floors – actually an entire restoration, but she’s a rare and quite desirable wagon. Plus there’ll be a lot of extra parts included. I’m thinking $1900. Is that crazy?

That brings me to Glinda. Do I sell her and try and find a replacement LM coupe with a manual transmission setup, or do I heed the recommendation of a Corvair buddy and convert her? He reminded me that: one, “you know what you have with your ‘68”, and two, “you’ll spend more registering and tagging the replacement than you would on the parts you need to do the swap.” Both excellent points. Glinda is a pretty solid car and her current engine is a strong one, albeit a thirsty one. Since Victoria is always behind the wheel of her new car, I’ve been commuting in Glinda and enjoying everything but watching the noticably steady decline of the gas gauge needle. It may not be as bad as I perceive, but I won’t know until I run a couple tankfulls of high-test through her.

I hate making decisions.